What is 'home', and what material forms does it take when the concept of home is not associated with one paticular place? An increasing number of people are living on the move and have feelings of belonging to various places spread over great distances. It raises new anthropological questions about what 'home' is and how the concept can be understood.
A new research project will now investigate some of these question with the help of a large grant from VELUX FONDEN (a part of the VELUX FOUNDATIONS). Moesgaard Museum, in collaboration with University of Aarhus and Museum of Southern Jutland, has received one of three large grants from VELUX FONDEN's museum program.
From sailors in the Pacific to minorities in Southern Jutland
Based on the tradition for ethnographic studies of nomads at Moesgaard Museum, the project will explore the materialities, spatialities and atmospheres that constitute 'homes' for the contemporary groups of people for whom mobility is a permanent economic, historical and identity characteristic. Field studies among such diverse groups such as sailors in the Pacific, diaspora groups and nomads in Africa and mobile minorities in Southern Jutland will contribute new comparative knowledge and new theories about the relationship between materiality and home.
Central to the project is a rethinking of the way museums collect data, where audiovisual methods, especially 3D / VR, are systematized as documentation and data. Audiovisual methods and products will also be included experimentally in the exhibitions during the final phase of the project.